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Seven things you might not know about new Villa boss Remi Garde

Remi Garde has been named Aston Villa’s new manager in succession to Tim Sherwood. Here, TEAMtalk lists some facts about the 49-year-old Frenchman.

Remi Garde was born in L’Arbresle, which was also the birthplace of French composer Claude Terrasse.

Garde started his career at Lyon and played for the club for six years, helping them to promotion to Ligue 1 in 1989, before joining Strasbourg in 1993.

He won six caps for France between 1990 and 1992, making his debut in a friendly against Kuwait. He was part of France’s Euro 92 squad under Michel Platini. They qualified with a 100 per cent record but then crashed out at the group stage, with Garde not playing a single minute at the finals in Sweden.

Garde joined Arsenal on the same day as Patrick Vieira in 1996 and went on to make 45 appearances for the Gunners but never scored before he retired in 1999.

He won the Premier League with Arsenal in 1998 but was left out of their FA Cup final-winning squad against Newcastle. He only made one appearance in the Gunners’ successful cup run – in the quarter-final replay against West Ham. It finished 1-1 after extra-time and Arsenal won 4-3 on penalties, with Garde missing for the Gunners in the shoot-out.

As assistant to Paul Le Guen, Garde helped Lyon to back-to-back titles in 2003-04 and 2004-05 before becoming Gerard Houllier’s right-hand man and then manager himself in 2011.

Lyon finished fourth, third and fifth under Garde in Ligue 1 but did win the Coupe de France in 2012 before the manager left in 2014. ”The reasons are personal and family. I feel the need to take a break,” he said at the time.